a good universe next door
by rainbow-dango
Summary: Instead of erasing Peter, the Machine gave him the power travel to an infinite number of universes, an ability he didn't have much use for until Olivia died and he was desperate to find the worlds where she was okay. [Based on a fanvid by maitikaHan.]


_A/N: I can't believe I'm finally posting this fic. I honestly can't. I started working on it a little less than a year ago, if not a year ago (yikes!), but it's here now, which is crazy and awesome. I wanted to post it yesterday, for the second anniversary, but whatever. Editing happens._

_This fic is based on a maitikaHan vid entitled 'It was just a dream (P&O - AU)' (if you've never heard of maitikaHan - dude, what?); if you've seen it, or decide to watch before venturing onto the fic, I'm warning you now: there is a bit that's different. Namely: [spoilers!]. I tried to write a more apocalypse-y version, but the words just didn't come, and this fic is what happened. No disrespect to maitikaHan or her vid; I'm just not good at writing apocalypses, apparently. It ended up more like the second half of 'Clannad: After Story' than anything else, and if you've ever seen that anime, you'll know what I mean (I know, I know, I've watched an anime, send me down the river or whatever)._

_Anyways, enough of my rambling. Hope you enjoy!_

_Disclaimer: _Fringe_ owns my heart, but, sadly, I don't own it._

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><p>listen: there's a hell of a good universe next door; let's go.<p>

- e.e. cummings

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><p>Looking back, this whole thing must've started the second he stepped into the Machine.<p>

When he left it, his head was throbbing, memories knotted up like a child's clumsy attempt at tying shoelaces. He knew what he had done, though, and what he had to do. Maybe it was presumptuous to think that he could singlehandedly end a transuniversal war, but it had been started over him, and he had to at least try.

Walter and Olivia locked gazes with their alternates. Peter was talking fast, explaining: _Yes, The First People, Walter, but The First People are us - you, most specifically and maybe Ella and Astrid - I don't know. I don't know who it was that took the machine back through time. But I know something else. I've seen Doomsday, and it is worse than anything you could possibly imagine. This isn't a war that can be won. Our two worlds are inextricable. If one side dies, we all die. So I've torn holes in both the universes and they lead here, to this room. A bridge so that we can begin to work together to fix -_

That was when everything - for him, anyway - went black.

He woke up in the lab, feeling like a sword was running through the entirety of his skull. Both Olivia and Astrid held one of his hands; he could hear Walter pacing about the lab, heard his distinctive gait and footfalls.

"Walter, he's awake," Astrid summoned the older man. Her voice was gentle, soft, but he still flinched. Olivia let go of his hand to run her fingers through his hair; they were cold, but the touch was soothing nonetheless.

And then Walter was there, babbling scientific terms that Peter didn't have the strength to even try to understand, fear still in his eyes (if Peter hadn't felt like his head might _explode_, he would've tried to comfort his father). He was mostly incoherent, and at Peter's confused, pained look, Olivia clarified, "You - you sort of - glitched. Walter thinks that you almost phased out of existence."

"Sounds like a regular day at the office," he quipped, and she let out a relieved, emotionally-exhausted sort of laugh, clamping her fingers over her mouth the instant that the sound escaped.

Walter started rambling again, but Peter wasn't paying attention. He was sure that he'd never been quite this glad just to exist.

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><p>A few days later, Walter came up with a theory that Peter didn't agree to test until after a lot of goading on Walter's part. Just to placate his father, Peter attempted to cross over to the other universe, to his immense surprise, succeeded. When he returned (a bit panicked, admittedly, because he didn't want to be stuck Over There), the apprehension was clear on Olivia's face, and it made him immediately forget his own moment of fear. He noticed her hand flitting up to scratch the back of her neck, and he knew what it meant.<p>

Walter started ranting about the _endless possibilities _and such, falling into mad scientist mode, but Peter wasn't paying attention. He went to Olivia's side, placed a hand on the small of her back. Her hand flitted back to her side, and he moved his gently to intertwine their fingers.

The gestures were simple, small, but they both knew what they meant. Olivia leaned slightly closer and he did too, to whisper, underneath his father, "I missed you."

"You were only gone for a second," she returned.

He shrugged in response, and the smile on her face made him wonder why he'd ever want to leave her side, what sight in any world could be more beautiful than that.

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><p>The weeks that followed the revelation weren't particularly pleasant; not only was Walter running test after test on Peter, but all of them now had to make nice with the other universe, something more easily said than done.<p>

(Olivia's nightmares came back, and it broke Peter's heart. She was always so shaken and so scared and he held her close until she settled back into a restless sleep.)

But, about two months into this whole ordeal, possibly the best thing - and, as it would turn out eventually, the worst - happened to him and Olivia.

"Peter," she said softly, hands cradling his face, her smile so bright it surely could've powered the entirety of Boston. "I'm pregnant."

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><p>On the afternoon before everything went wrong, when he stepped into the house he and Olivia had moved into only a few weeks before, she was fast asleep on the couch from her old apartment. She'd never been one to nap (or even sleep for the number of hours that most people require to function), but she was nine months pregnant, which he imagined got exhausting at times. Not that she'd ever complain, of course.<p>

He noticed that a couple strands of blonde hair had fallen across her face, free from her ponytail, and gently brushed them back, behind her ear. She shifted - made a small, sleeping sound - and her eyes slowly opened, focused on him. Smiled sleepily.

"Hey," she rasped.

"Hey," he returned softly. "Didn't mean to wake you."

She shook her head and reached out to card a hand through his hair. "How's Henry?"

Shortly after creating the Bridge, the other Olivia had cornered him and told him about his son, and he now visited Henry once a week. Saturday afternoons. He didn't particularly **enjoy her **company (he greatly preferred the days when she at work, and it was just him and his son, who would get passed off to the nanny when Peter had to leave) and he knew that the entire situation made Olivia uncomfortable, but they both knew he couldn't just ignore his son. _Na eín ai kalýtero ánthropo apó ton patéra sou. _

"Fine. I can't believe he's almost a year old." He sounded sappy and fatherly - actually, he sounded a lot like Walter did sometimes, in his quieter, saner moments. "Goes by fast."

He smiled, and she did too, but it was a tight, forced smile. He didn't say anything; he wasn't stupid enough to think that just because she was civil with the other Olivia meant that all wounds had healed. He thought that maybe she'd never be fully _okay_ with Henry's existence.

She loved their daughter, though; it was already obvious.

He placed a hand on her stomach then, and when he kissed his fiancée to bring a genuine smile to her face, the baby kicked at his fingers. They both pulled back to look down.

"You don't approve?" Peter quipped. "That's pretty funny, considering that's how we ended up making you."

Olivia rolled her eyes.

And then everything was still for a moment, a rarity for them. It was nice. Peter would later wish that he'd taken her in then, memorized every feature, her sparkling eyes and smiling mouth and sleep-mussed hair. Her nose, her teeth, her ears, her eyebrows. Everything, absolutely everything.

She squeezed her eyes shut.

"You okay?" he asked, moving his hand to her cheek.

"Contraction," she choked out. "Really strong one."

"Do we need to go to the hospital?"

Her only response was a stiff nod, and he helped her off the couch, helped her to the car. An excited grin crept onto his face - they were having a baby. _They were having a baby_.

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><p>"Olivia? Liv, honey, what's wrong? Hey, Liv - oh my God! Help! Somebody help! Stay with me, Liv, c'mon, stay with me. Don't leave me, sweetheart, please."<p>

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><p>He felt dizzy, like he might pass out, or throw up. Like the world had fallen off its axis, out of the sun's gravity, but he was the only one who noticed. He was the only one who cared. What the hell was holding this universe together, if not Olivia?<p>

"Peter," Astrid said, though she sounded millions of miles away. Her hands gripped his shoulders. "What happened?"

He couldn't move. He could not move. He didn't even know if he was breathing - _what the hell was holding this universe together?_

In a haze of grief, he was sure he'd been standing here forever, in this bustling, sterile hospital corridor.

Astrid said his name again, insistent, trying to bring him back there, to that awful place where Olivia wasn't. "Look at me," she continued. "Are Olivia and the baby okay?"

"Baby's okay," he choked out.

"And Olivia?"

He shook his head.

_What the hell was holding this universe together, with Olivia not in it?_

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><p>She looked so - so unlike herself underneath the morgue's harsh lights. Her skin was an awful grayish color; her hair was matted with sweat. When he picked up her hand, it wasn't even cold yet. She could've been sleeping - oh, it was so easy to pretend that she was just sleeping.<p>

_Wake up, Olivia. C'mon, Liv, it's time to get up. Etta's waiting for you in the nursery._

"Hey," he murmured, voice low and thick, tears burning his eyes.

He half-expected a response. Something, anything. A miracle of the fringe division variety - she survived a car crash that left her braindead, so why not this too?

"I-I haven't seen Etta yet," he admitted (she had chosen the name, a few days after finding out the baby was a girl; _she's the closest thing to an alternate that Henry's going to get_, she had said). "Don't worry, though. I won't check out on her. I won't run."

He said it like a promise, but maybe it was a lie. He didn't know. He'd never felt like this before, not ever. Not ever.

"I'm so proud of you," he whispered shakily. "You did it, honey. She's here. We have a baby, Liv."

She was staring up at the ceiling as he spoke, seeing nothing, and it was wrong somehow that her eyes were open at all.

He closed them - it was like the movies, like there should be dramatic music playing, like she'd sit up and stretch her limbs when the cameras stopped filming. Like the huge tear in his chest wasn't even real at all.

"I love you."

There were more words to say, so much more to tell her before she was locked away in a coffin, locked away from him, but they were all jammed up in his throat. His brain buzzed numbly; the paralyzed feeling returned. He felt like a child who hadn't quite learned to walk yet, aware of his limbs but unsure how to make them work.

_I love you_ didn't cut it, couldn't possibly encompass it all, so small and so common and holding only a modicum of sanctity, but nothing else came after.

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><p><em>AN: I just read an analysis on the above cummings quote, and the poem it comes from doesn't exactly mesh with _Fringe_, but maybe it does, a bit. I don't know. That one line just fits this fic pretty well, and makes for a good title. I originally wanted to do an Atwood quote, but I couldn't make into a good title, so now we have cummings._

_Updates will, hopefully, be fairly regular. Hopefully._

_- Ellie_


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